What does a child have to do to rotate a 3D solid mentally in the 11+?

Identify a solid after one rigid rotation using visible features. It is one of 22 named non-verbal reasoning skills in the 11+, in the spatial strand, and this page carries 1 interactive exercise that practises it.

What is the trap in an 11+ rotate a 3D solid mentally question?

A reflection of this solid has all 4 cubes in the right places and still cannot be made by turning it, because turning never swaps left for right. The wrong answers on this skill are built out of that, not out of random numbers, so it is worth naming out loud before your child meets it under time pressure.

What is not part of rotate a 3D solid mentally in the 11+?

The skill map draws the line here: No reflection or deformation. A question past that line is testing a different named non-verbal reasoning skill, which is worth knowing before you spend a week practising the wrong one.

Which other 11+ skills should we practise alongside rotate a 3D solid mentally?

The skill map connects it to match a solid and its view. Mental rotation supports matching a solid from a changed viewpoint. That skill has its own page here.

How can my child practise rotate a 3D solid mentally for free?

Use Solid Rotator, embedded on this page. It is the exercise the skill map attaches to rotate a 3D solid mentally, it runs in the browser with no account to make, nothing is scored, and nothing a child does here is recorded or sent anywhere. It also has its own link, so you can send it to a child without sending them anywhere else first.

Non-verbal Reasoning · Spatial

Rotate a 3D solid mentally

Identify a solid after one rigid rotation using visible features.

Free to use and free to share. There is no sign-up, no score, and nothing a child does here is recorded or sent anywhere.

Practise it now

Turn your solid with the arrow buttons until it sits exactly like the ghost.

Loading the interactive exercise. Nothing you do here is saved or scored.

A worked example

One question of the kind this skill is tested with, worked all the way through: the reasoning, and what the wrong answers are there to catch.

Following a solid round

Imagine standing this 4-cube solid on a turntable and giving it a quarter turn to the right about the upright axis. The side that was looking at you swings round to the right. Which picture shows what you would see?

The solid is 2 cubes across and 2 cubes deep, so after the turn it is 2 across and 2 deep. Nothing moves up or down.

4 cubes, where level 1 has row 1 squares 1 and 2; level 2 has row 1 squares 1 and 2
4 cubes, where level 1 has row 1 no squares, row 2 square 2; level 2 has row 1 squares 1 and 2, row 2 square 2
4 cubes, where level 1 has row 1 no squares, row 2 square 1; level 2 has row 1 square 2, row 2 squares 1 and 2
4 cubes, where level 1 has row 1 no squares, row 2 square 1; level 2 has row 1 squares 1 and 2, row 2 square 1

Answer: 4 cubes, where level 1 has row 1 no squares, row 2 square 2; level 2 has row 1 squares 1 and 2, row 2 square 2

How you get there

A quarter turn to the right about the upright axis swings the face that was towards you round to the right-hand side, and leaves every cube at the height it started. This solid is 2 cubes across and 2 deep, so afterwards it is 2 across and 2 deep with the same 4 cubes, which is the picture marked correct.

Why the other answers tempt

A reflection of this solid has all 4 cubes in the right places and still cannot be made by turning it, because turning never swaps left for right.

If they are stuck, say this

Turning something never swaps its left and right the way a mirror does. If a picture looks like this solid held up to a mirror, no amount of turning will produce it.

Now do it live in Solid Rotator

What this exercise is doing

Solid Rotator

Turn your solid with the arrow buttons until it sits exactly like the ghost.

Turning a solid moves every cube together, so its handedness never changes. A solid that has been MIRRORED bends the other way round, and no amount of turning will ever fix that - the same reason a left glove never fits a right hand.

Step 1. Turn it. Turn your solid until it matches the ghost exactly.
Step 2. Same solid?. Three of these are impostors. Which one is the SAME solid, just turned?

What to say if they get stuck

Pick one cube to follow - the one on the very end of the longest run - and watch only that one as you turn.
The glowing rod is the axis you are turning about. Everything spins round that rod and nothing else moves.
It can be done in two quarter turns: anticlockwise about the y axis, then anticlockwise about the x axis.

Open Solid Rotator on its own page to share it

Where rotate a 3d solid mentally sits in the 11+

The 11+ does not test these skills in isolation, and practising one in the wrong order wastes the practice. These are the skills the curriculum map connects this one to.

The same thinking carries into: Match a solid and its view
Mental rotation supports matching a solid from a changed viewpoint.

Related non-verbal reasoning skills

All non-verbal reasoning 11+ skills

Questions parents ask about rotate a 3d solid mentally

Answered from what the skill map records about this skill, not from a template. Every answer here is on the page, and the same questions are the page's FAQ structured data.

: Identify a solid after one rigid rotation using visible features. It is one of 22 named non-verbal reasoning skills in the 11+, in the spatial strand, and this page carries 1 interactive exercise that practises it.
: A reflection of this solid has all 4 cubes in the right places and still cannot be made by turning it, because turning never swaps left for right. The wrong answers on this skill are built out of that, not out of random numbers, so it is worth naming out loud before your child meets it under time pressure.
: Point at the next move rather than explaining the whole rule. Turning something never swaps its left and right the way a mirror does. If a picture looks like this solid held up to a mirror, no amount of turning will produce it.
: The skill map draws the line here: No reflection or deformation. A question past that line is testing a different named non-verbal reasoning skill, which is worth knowing before you spend a week practising the wrong one.
: The skill map connects it to match a solid and its view. Mental rotation supports matching a solid from a changed viewpoint. That skill has its own page here.
: Use Solid Rotator, embedded on this page. It is the exercise the skill map attaches to rotate a 3D solid mentally, it runs in the browser with no account to make, nothing is scored, and nothing a child does here is recorded or sent anywhere. It also has its own link, so you can send it to a child without sending them anywhere else first.

Non-verbal reasoning is the paper families most often leave until last

A free diagnostic covers matrices, series, odd one out, rotation, reflection and the 3D questions, and shows where the time is worth spending.

Start the free 11+ diagnostic